Disability Rights update: November 2004

Published 25 November 2004. Other recent editions: September 2004; July 2004 . Material from older editions is incorporated in the Commission's annual reports available online.

About this update

This Update from Acting Disability Discrimination Commissioner Dr Sev Ozdowski is a slightly edited version of his regular disability rights project report for meetings of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. It is published as close as possible to Commission meetings, which are generally held 6 to 8 weeks apart. Events are notified first in the What s New section of the Disability Rights home page, so check there if you want to keep fully up to date.

You can subscribe to our email list to be notified when new editions of this update are issued and when other major developments occur, by sending a blank message to join-drupdate@list.humanrights.gov.au

Your comments on any project or issue are welcome, preferably sent by e-mail. Contact us at: disabdis@humanrights.gov.au , or by mail to Disability Rights Unit, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 1042.

Productivity Commission inquiry

Prior to the election we provided comments towards a Government response to the Productivity Commission review of the DDA. This response was anticipated for November prior to the election and hopefully will not be significantly delayed beyond that.

Access to Premises

The Australian Building Codes Board's Building Access Policy Committee - of which the Commission is a member - has been going through the large number of submissions received since the Draft Standards on Access to Premises and Regulation Impact Statement were put out for public comment. Whilst keen to ensure the greatest possible access for people with disabilities, the committee remains conscious of the high costs involved - particularly in changes to existing buildings and access to upper storeys of small buildings.

However, the importance of all members of the community having equal access to buildings, plus the value of clarity and certainty gained by having the DDA mirrored in the Australian Building Code, cannot be under-estimated. The Commission is working with all other parties to find options for a way forward. This work will continue into 2005, when a proposal will be put to Government for its consideration.

Accessible e commerce

The Commission recently released its report of the review of the voluntary Banking Standards on ATM's, Eftpos, Internet Banking and Telephone Banking. The report shows steady progress towards a more accessible electronic banking environment, but a lack of knowledge by people with disabilities as to the availability of accessible banking facilities.

Banks have been encouraged to communicate more with people with disabilities, and advertise what has been achieved. The Commission's report includes a capacity for this, with links from the report direct to the relevant pages of sites of participating banks.

Education

With the resumption of Parliament after the election, amendments to the DDA associated with the draft Disability Standards for Education have been reintroduced. I issued a press release welcoming this, and hope that the amendments, and the Standards themselves, will be speedily approved.

Employment issues

With the Commission having decided that it should conduct an inquiry on employment and disability issues, discussions have commenced with the Attorney-General on whether the inquiry will be conducted on a reference from the Attorney or pursuant to the Commission's own powers. Preparatory work consistent with either course of action is continuing.

Exemptions

Public comments have been requested on an application for temporary exemption regarding accessibility of tram services in Bendigo.

Health access

We have continued to contribute views on access issues in the development by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners of practice standards for general practitioners. I hope to be able to conduct more general follow up work early next year to our forum on health access issues for people with disabilities.

Information access

Over the past two years the Commission's disability policy unit has been working with the publishing industry and organisations representing people with a print disability, to collate and clarify information relating to the impact of copyright legislation, procedures and practices on the 1 million Australians who have a disability that prevents them from using standard printed material. The result of this collaborative project is a list of answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on copyright and publishing that is now available on the Commission's website. It is anticipated that this document will not only serve as a useful resource for publishers, producers of accessible-format materials, and consumer with a print disability, but will also inform the Commission's ongoing work in this area.

Since the National Form on Accessible Tertiary Materials that the Commission organised in May 2002, steady progress has been made on developing codes of practice and guidelines that will make it easier for university students with a print disability to gain access to the materials they need in formats that are accessible.The resulting guidelines have now been endorsed by the AVCC and are being circulated to universities throughout Australia. The guidelines are available on the AVCC website. In early November, Commission staff met with a representative of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) to discuss strategies for ensuring that progress continues. One outcome is that it was agreed that the Commission and AVCC would meet periodically to review initiatives and identify areas where further action is needed.

As a result of some publicity given to a Commission presentation at the Web Essentials 2004 conference held in Sydney in late September, the issue of the inaccessibility of information distributed in the Portable Document Format (PDF) has received some welcome media attention, and there has been an increase in the number of inquiries Commission staff have received. PDF files remain largely inaccessible to people who are blind or vision-impaired, and their widespread use without a complementary accessible alternative has been a concern for some time.

Insurance

Comments have been requested on a revised draft of our Advisory Note in this area.

Mental Health consultations

The face to face consultation phase of this process is now complete and our colleagues at the Mental Health Council are compiling the results of these together with written submissions received to prepare a series of state by state reports as well as a national overview, to which we will be adding some material based on the human rights instruments so that the results of the consultations may better serve to promote debate and policy development. Already the process appears to have assisted in several jurisdictions announcing increased resourcing in this area. At the Federal level all major parties included significant commitments in relation to mental health in their platforms.

Telecommunications

A report on progress in this area since the Commission's forum last year is expected to be available very shortly.

Cinema Captioning

The next meeting of the Cinema Captioning Committee will be considering possible benefits of a new system for projecting captions onto films in cinema. The new technology offers the potential for reduced production and distribution costs and possible improvements in availability of new release films.

Recent meetings / speeches / media

Meetings are for Commissioner Ozdowski except as otherwise indicated.

14 Dec: Roundtable on job accommodation network, Sydney (Dep Cmr Innes)
29 Nov: Launch of "Missed business" access guide with Marrickville Council, Marrickville
27 Nov: PWD Australia AGM, Sydney
24 Nov: ACROD workshop on employment and disability, Canberra
22 Nov: MHCA AGM, Canberra
16 Nov: SANE Australia roundtable on mental health and employment, Melbourne
12 Nov: Attorney-General re mental health consultations, Sydney
3-4 Nov: Building Access Policy Committee, Sydney (DepCmr Innes)
3 Nov: ACCI annual meeting, Canberra
29 Oct: Dr Helen Watchirs, ACT Human Rights and Discrimination Commissioner, Sydney (D.Mason)
27 Oct: Employers Making a Difference seminar on DDA and OH&S, Sydney (Cmr Ozdowski, Dep Cmr Innes)
25-26 Oct: Australian Industry Group conference including speech on DDA developments, Canberra
25 Oct: Norwegian Law Commission, Sydney (DepCmr Innes, Mr Mason)
20 Oct: Mental health meetings including launch of Aust Nursing Federation plan, Adelaide
19 Oct: Building Access Policy Committee officers meeting, Canberra (Dep Cmr Innes)
19 Oct: MHCA re report from mental health consultations, Sydney
15 Oct: Disability consultative committee on building standards, Sydney (Cmr Ozdowski, Dep Cmr Innes)
14 Oct: Mental health consultations: issues for NESB people, Parramatta
12 Oct: President, Vic Mental Health Review Board, Melbourne
11 Oct: Building Access Policy Committee officers meeting, Canberra (Dep Cmr Innes)
7 Oct: Australian Film Finance Corporation re captioning, Sydney (Dep Cmr Innes, Mr Small)
6 Oct: Mental health consultations (MHCA and Victorian consumer groups), Melbourne
1 Oct: Fiona Smith, Chair EOCV, Sydney (Dep Cmr Innes)
29 Sept: Mental health consultations, Adelaide
22 Sept: Building Access Policy Committee, Sydney (Dep Cmr Innes, Mr Small)